This talk by Mark Wilson about OpenAPS, at last Friday’s DiabetesMine D-Data ExChange 2016, contains a metaphor that’s just brilliant, explaining why patients would want to do this. Below the video are a few words for people who don’t yet know what OpenAPS is. (Thank you to Hugo Campos for highlighting this on his Facebook last night – patients spreading the word!) Twenty minutes plus Q&A.
The #OpenAPS movement (Open Artificial Pancreas System) is exploding with articulate patient voices. On this blog we posted twice about it last month from the Quantified Self Public Health event in San Diego and the O’Reilly #OSCON Open Source conference (two talks by Dana Lewis) and last week at the American Diabetes Association conference in New Orleans, for my own blog I interviewed Dana and co-creator Scott Leibrand, and finally met OpenAPS pioneer Ben West … I need to get clear on who did what when!
Industry observers, notice: this is a great big live specimen of what patient experience looks like when patients take the wheel. And notice that it’s not just about a more pleasant “drive” – they’re getting measurably better clinical results.
Eight years ago at the 2008 Connected Health conference in Boston, internet visionary Clay Shirky said “The patients on ACOR don’t need our permission and they don’t need our help.” I never would have imagined that it would go this far, but here we are.